Thursday, October 1, 2009

Do Endorsements Matter in the Wildrose Alliance Leadership Race?

With the Wildrose Alliance Leadership race now in the final stretch, I found myself wondering if political endorsements really matter? Does anyone switch their vote based on who has more ( or better) public endorsements? Is it all for show? Lets look at some of the public endorsements for each candidate...

Mark Dyrholm's endorsements ( taken from his twitter posts over the past few months & official website) include the following:

The scope (and arguably, the quality) of these endorsement varies quite a bit. I know the conventional wisdom says..." the only endorsements that matter are the votes on leadership day", but I thought it was worth reviewing. Either camp cannot say they do not care about these endorsements or they would not publicly flaunt them every time the were received.

Does it make a difference to anyone? Will it change anyones vote? Does anyone care? If not, why do people make such a big deal about the endorsments? What are your thoughts?

Endorsements from pundits matter, this means both MSM op-eds, bloggers, and what one sees in the comment threads for both.

Endorsements from politicians, business people, etc ought to be dismissed because 9 times out of 10 they are based on networking and not a weighed analysis. It's, "hey, old pal, remember how we worked together on X and Y back in the day? I happening to be running for King of the World. Could I count on your endorsement?" "Sure. I've always reckoned you and upstanding guy who was going places." Sometimes one doesn't even have to reference a common experience. Just let it drop that you are both Punjabi or Ukrainian or a member of the same church and you've got your endorsement. These endorsements signify connections and not much more.

Theo's back on the sauce already? Alison has an embarrassing family member (pretty much like any one of us)? Where's Dave Crutcher (former "President" - for about eight minutes - of the Egmont PC Association and Craig's chief fartcatcher)? And why the hell would I care about endorsements from non-Albertans? May as well go ahead and list your wives, children and dogs.

I'm amazed that Craig had the time to type out another shot of slime at Danielle on here, given how much of his time is spent making complaints directly to Danielle about people who he is aware aren't even part of the Smith campaign.

I have a hard time believing that these are WAP supporters, does this mean that your done with the party if the other wins? The only endorsement that is relevent is the ones casting the vote. Where the campaign team is from is irrelevent,Craig you post an endorsment from Hillier, same thing. Can anyone see the good in the other candidate or just wanting to bring up nonsenese? Geuss we will see in 15 days.

I'm pretty sure Santa Claus is a Liberal supporter, he only works one day a year, he loves red, believes in a traditional non-carbon form of transportation, and repeats the same message over and over and over.